What if You Aren’t Who You Think You Are?
What if you aren’t who you think you are? Do we really know who we are or are we impostors?
“When you realize that you have you, then you realize that because of that everything starts and everything happens.”
Choi, Johwa. From Well-Being to Well-Dying: Harmony Meditation: A new way to completion
Do we realize that we have ourselves? What does that even mean? I have heard these things before but I like the way Johwa puts it in his book Harmony Meditation because it can lead the reader to an experience of this for themselves instead of just understanding it as a concept.
Examples of this are further alluded to in the book. We experience this everyday but it’s so normal to us we don’t even realize that we are expressing the fact that we are someone other than we believe ourselves to be. How often do we say, “I’m thinking about it.â€Â Or we might say, “I have a headacheâ€. We make clear distinctions between our thoughts and our “Selvesâ€. We say “I†am thinking. That “I†that is thinking, is not the thoughts and we clearly distinguish the two.
We also distinguish between our Self and our body. We say “I†have a headache. We see ourselves as our body and thoughts but at the same time we distinguish ourselves between them when we speak. Who is the “I†that has the headache? Yet we are still totally identified with ourselves as our thoughts, body, and emotions.
“You can be mad at yourself, too. What kind of emotion is that? In order to be mad at yourself you are treating yourself like there exists one, but there is another you, as well.”
From Well-Being to Well-Dying: Harmony Meditation: A new way to completion
Hmm that’s interesting. What is this other you? Is it for real? Can I imagine another me besides the me I have been my entire life? What are the implications of this? What good is it to me? Why should I bother investigating this at all?
I think those are really important questions. What’s in it for me? Why should I bother with this? Personally, I like big payoffs. I don’t gamble these days but if I do I want to win Big! To me it seems all people like to benefit themselves but we also enjoy helping others. We are social beings. In general we like the idea of “win/win†situations.
I am still discovering who I am, and often times feel like I am starting over from scratch, but I can’t resist myself because I love the payoffs I have received so far and I enjoy the social benefits as well. I also see huge potential in this endeavor for myself and everyone else. More than that, I believe that this is a subject of some urgency for resolving our personal as well as our social dilemmas. I hope to explore this more in upcoming posts. Please subscribe and comment below until then, Savor Who Am I? and it’s Power!
